Considering the accessibility and cost, the main thin film deposition techniques used in photovoltaics are physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), chemical solution deposition and sol–gel [ 3 ]. 2. Crystalline silicon solar cells As mentioned above, c-Si is dominating the PV industry with a market share of 95%.
One key deposition method used in III–V thin film solar cell fabrication is metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), also called metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE). Metal–organic CVD (MOCVD) is a CVD process for growing epitaxial films and is done by flowing precursor gases over the substrate.
It is safe to assume that thin-film solar cells will play an increasing role in the future PV market. On the other hand, any newcomer to the production scene will, for obvious reasons, have a very hard time in displacing well-established materials and technologies, such as crystalline and amorphous silicon.
Solar cell devices based on the as-prepared silicon films exhibit clear photovoltaic effects, with power conversion efficiency around 3.1%. This technique provides a promising approach for low-cost silicon solar cells production and potentially for high quality crystalline silicon film production for other applications.
It involves the generation of electricity from sunlight shining through the front cover onto solar cells packaged into a solar module. As of May 2022, global PV installations have reached 1 TW. In the PV market, crystalline-Si (c-Si) solar cells account for 95% and thin film solar cells account for 5% [ 2 ].
The photovoltaic sector is now led by silicon solar cells because of their well-established technology and relatively high efficiency. Currently, industrially made silicon solar modules have an efficiency between 16% and 22% (Anon (2023b)).